I see what you mean...but say you have that level of control over your body...wouldn't that be a huge asset?

Absolutely, which is why I bought a pair of parallettes and spend a few minutes a day working on different stuff.

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You yourself often talk about using modern sport methods in aikido...

Yes. I strongly advocate doing so and will continue to do so.

However, that's tempered by my being an athlete....as such I'm concerned about results, and the bottom line is you don't have to be able to do a standing back tuck to be really, really good at aikido.

Take kickboxing for example.... As far as I know, there's no rule against doing a jumping, spinning, triple kick to your opponent's side. But the time spent to learn to jump, spin and triple kick a resisting opponent would be better spent in just learning to kick them in the side. It wouldn't be as fancy, but it would be effective, efficient and has a long, proven track record of working.